Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi, New Age Islam

Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi, New Age Islam

Etymologically, Millat means a pathway in Arabic. Millat Ibrahim denotes the faith tradition of Prophet Abraham (or Ibrahim in Arabic) as mentioned in the Qur'an. The Qur'an refers to the faith of Ibrahim as “Millat u Ibrahim”. It also tells about Hazrat Ibrahim’s experiences in the quest for the truth and how he first considered a star, moon and sun as his gods but rejected them as mere creatures and how he finally believed in their Creator (Qur'an 6:76-79). The Qur’an has used the term Millat in fifteen different contexts. 10 of them (2:120, 2:130, 2:135, 3:95, 4:125, 6:161, 12:37, 12:38, 16:123, 22:78) refer, directly or indirectly, to Prophet Abraham. It also tells us that it is Abraham who coined the term "Muslim" and Allah named all his followers Muslims. (Qur'an 22:78)....

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan

If one pauses at this stage to take note of what the Quran has to say, one will find that it gives us clear guidance in this matter. The purpose in life has been explained in the Quran in the following words: “I created the jinn and mankind only so that they might worship Me: I seek no sustenance from them, nor do I want them to feed Me—it is God who is the great Sustainer, the Mighty One, the Invincible.”(51:56-57)...

Dr A Q Khan

Dr A Q Khan

One big advantage of believing in the Creator is that, whenever in distress, there is something solid to hold onto, someone to pray to and seek favour and hope from. Those who do not believe in a higher being have nothing to hold on to, nobody to seek relief from for their problems and nobody to ask for guidance and help or remain close to them when in a difficult situation....

Tewfick Aclimandos

Tewfick Aclimandos

He added: almost all theologians — Salafists or otherwise — say defensive jihad is legitimate. In addition, it is quite easy to prove many Muslim peoples are under attack, in Palestine or Iraq, for instance. So eventually, you will have at least a minority of quietist Salafists that will opt for violence. This subtle paper fascinated me. Jihadists and peaceful Salafists, who just try to construe a different sub-society, have a lot in common, so it is easy to switch from one position to the other and vice versa....

Raza Wazir

Raza Wazir

I got my Watan Card last March. On it, apart from my biographical details and a photograph, there is a drawing of the Khyber Pass and the abbreviation N.W.A., for North Waziristan Agency. It marks me and other residents of the region as separate from the full citizens of Pakistan....

Akbar Jan Marwat

Akbar Jan Marwat

The dialogue offer by the Afghan Taliban, which came about a month after the bloody attack on Kabul, killing hundreds of innocent civilians, is unique in another sense also. It is for the first time, that the Taliban, have offered a negotiated solution to the US instead of the Ghani Government. The Taliban have in fact made it clear, that they consider the Ghani regime only a puppet of the Americans...

BEST OF BEFORE ARTICLES

Naseer Ahmed, New Age Islam

Naseer Ahmed, New Age Islam

Islamic
theology is mostly un-Islamic and needs extensive reform of a fundamental
nature. It is full of utter nonsense. It is not very much different from what
the extremists believe which is why it can never effectively counter them. To
give you an example, in Islamic theology, kafir has come to mean a non-Muslim
which is not the meaning of the word in the Quran at all. Now if you read the
Quran giving the word such a meaning, and when this word in its various
grammatical forms appears in the Quran more than 300 times, you can imagine the
havoc it plays with the meaning of the Quran! What is the solution? The
solution is to show exactly what meaning the Quran gives to this word with the
help of the Quranic verses. Is that possible? It is possible to very precisely
define what it means and what it does not mean after which the Quran reads very
differently and makes very good sense. With the wrong meaning it sounds
absolutely grotesque. By changing the meaning of one word, the word of God can
be transformed into the word of Satan.....

Naseer Ahmed, New Age Islam

Naseer Ahmed, New Age Islam

While the Quran may be a
Book that makes things clear, the Muslims could still deviate from the Quran
for narrow political interests, bigotry and parochialism that is common among
the religious right in every religion. The reason that Muslims have many
erroneous concepts is because of their theology which is based on the Ahadith
and not on the Quran. The Ahadith differ from the Quran on every subject. The
Ahadith were compiled two centuries after the death of the Prophet and its sole
purpose appears to have been to bend Islam to the needs of powerful interest
groups. A person who is first indoctrinated in the Ahadith will view through
glasses that distort the truth and will not find the truth….

Imam Shamshad A. Nasir, New Age Islam

Imam Shamshad A. Nasir, New Age Islam

If all the
Americans, Europeans and others, sincerely desire to uproot Terrorism across
the globe then all those Political
Powers must stop immediately funding
them and do not provide any kind of
ammunition to them. These are the only ways to stop Islamophobia here
and there....

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan for New Age Islam

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, New Age Islam

I think that
peace is the Summum Bonum, the greatest good, because peace has no
limit. We all say that we want peace. We never say that we want ‘limited
peace’, because peace has no limit. Peace is indispensible for every sort of
progress. Without peace, you can’t do anything properly, not even walk on a
street with peace of mind. All positive activities will come to a halt if there
is no peace. Whether it be in religion or in secular affairs, in every sphere
of life peace is essential for progress. That is why it is the Summum Bonum.....

Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

We can take or
not take their take on an issue but we can’t afford to be old selves after
reading them. Encountering such philosophers is like encountering spiritual
Masters who indelibly mark us. They open up our eyes and one begins to see
another world. One learns to appreciate the other, the other point of view or
other paths to truth....

Ghulam Ghaus Siddiqi, New Age Islam

Ghulam Ghaus Siddiqi, New Age Islam

Repentance
[Tauba] in Islamic mysticism is regarded as the first station of
travellers on the way to the Truth, just as purification [Taharat] is
the first step of those who desire to serve Allah Almighty. This is tantamount
to a piece of land needed for laying foundations; so the person who has no
piece of land cannot lay foundations for a building. Similarly, the person, who
has not repented of his sins and asked forgiveness of Allah, can never march
even a single step towards Islamic mysticism.....

Dr Vivek Kumar Srivastava

Dr Vivek Kumar Srivastava

Now the new
phase of the feminist struggle starts in the country. Women of different
culture, background and status need to come forward and join the hands to make
the required change. They are bound by only one bond that is their identity at
the gender level. They all are women.....

Charlie Winter and Devorah Margolin

Charlie Winter

While, in
recent years, most allegations regarding women bombers in Iraq and Syria have
been dubious, there is reason to believe that at least some of these latest
reports from Mosul are credible. The
Islamic State has not acknowledged responsibility for these reported female
suicide bombings, but it has modified its ideological position on the
permissibility of female combatants recently, adopting a stance distinctly
reminiscent of its predecessor, al-Qa`ida in Iraq (AQI). Until now, this shift
has gone largely unnoticed.....

Neza T. Reyhan, New Age Islam

According to
the Quran, God has sent prophets to every nation, and they have taught the same
basic religion—of submission to the One God. The Rabbi quotes the Prophet as
saying: “Prophets are paternal brothers; their mothers are different, but their
religion is one.” This suggests the basic oneness of the teachings of all the
prophets. “Since all monotheistic scriptures come from the one and only God,”
the Rabbi says, “we should view other scriptures as potentially enriching our
own understanding and appreciation of our own scripture”—surely a powerful way
to bring people from different faith traditions into closer communion....

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan

In Islam, Talaq
is seen as an undesirable practice. But in rare cases, a couple may feel that
their marriage is not working, and in this situation, divorce is allowed.
However, there is a prescribed method laid down by the Quran (2:229). That is,
a divorce is finalised over a period of three months. In the first month, the
husband tells his wife that he has given her one Talaq. Both then wait for a
month during which they could reconcile. After the first month, he may either
take back the Talaq or pronounce it a second time. Both wait for another month,
at the end of which, if he pronounces a third Talaq, the divorce becomes
final.....

Sushant Pathak and Jamshed Adil Khan

As awful as
that may sound, a number of religious scholars are offering themselves up for one-night
stands with divorced Muslim women trying to save their marriages under a
disputable Islamic law, an India Today investigation has found. They charge
anywhere between Rs 20,000 and Rs 1.5 Lakh to participate in Nikah Halala, a
controversial practice that requires a woman to marry someone else, sleep with
him and get a divorce again in order to be able to remarry her first husband
under personal laws, the probe discovered.....

Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi, New Age Islam

Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi, New Age Islam

The decision of the
Barelvi and Deobandi Ulema against singing ‘Jana Gana Mana’ and ‘Vande Matram’
might have been their individual opinion, but the mainstream Muslims have
always sung the national anthem since independence. It’s regrettable that the
Barelvi and Deobandi clerics have chosen to exacerbate communal tensions by
issuing such divisive religious decrees at a time when a number of turbulent
issues like the love jihad, Ghar Wapsi (Muslim conversion to Hinduism) and the
cow-vigilantism, leading to mob-lynching, are already confronting the Indian
Muslims….

Rashid Samnakay, New Age Islam

The Muslim
tradition however has no basis in their Faith system derived from the source
Book the Quran, which they claim to be their guiding Book to submit to the
‘Will of God’. Because in there, the Creator of the Universe declares that:

22-37:
Neither their flesh, nor their blood reaches God but to Him is acceptable only
the observance of the duty on your part. Thus has He made them (animals)
subservience to you that you may glorify God for guiding you to the right path.
And give good news to those who do good to others....

Naseer Ahmed, New Age Islam

Naseer Ahmed, New Age Islam

If the Quran is the perfect, infallible word of God, then we need to review what the scholars and the Ulema have made of it in our theology using the historical approach, and get rid of all that is undesirable that has got into it. The process of reform is then not evolutionary but a resetting of our theology to the Quran’s ideal in the light of our understanding of the Book today. The understanding of the Quran could be evolutionary since we understand many of its verses better today because we have grown in our knowledge about the world and human nature. In this limited sense, the process may be called evolutionary...